From homegrown to global: Al Qaeda and Southeast Asian militants join forces

BY ANDREA M. HAMILTON

The deadly bombing in Bali, Indonesia, last month put Southeast Asia on the international radar screen for a reason few would have once thought possible: as a major stronghold of terrorism, likely linked to Al Qaeda.

In a Nov. 15 presentation that was meticulous -- and chilling -- in its detail, Simmons College Professor Zachary Abuza outlined how indigenous fundamentalist Islamic groups set up shop in different countries in the region and then, with the help of Al Qaeda, connected to each other. Donald Emmerson, senior fellow at the Asia Pacific Research Center and coordinator of its Southeast Asia Forum, moderated the Forum-sponsored discussion.

In his introduction, Emmerson noted that there has been a debate among Southeast Asian scholars since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks between what he termed the "norms" and the "names." Anthropologists, for example, argue that the Southeast Asian "norm" is moderation and tolerance, and the brand of Islam in the region is so unlike that found in the Middle East. But they are then blindsided by the "names" linked with various attacks and likely with Al Qaeda: Abu Bakar Bashir, Hambali, Omar al-Faruq. "The academics would reassert their faith in the norm, only to be again challenged by another attack, which seemed to highlight their naïveté," Emmerson said.

Abuza, a Southeast Asian specialist trained in security studies, has focused his research on insurgencies and terrorism. He emphasized that the groups he discussed in his presentation -- until recently little-known entities such as Laskar Jihad and Jema'ah Islamiah -- are a small fringe minority that take advantage of weak government control or poverty to assert influence and wreak havoc far beyond their actual numbers. "Originally, these were homegrown groups, not tied to any international organization," Abuza said, citing the longstanding hard-line Islamic separatist movement in Aceh, Indonesia, and the MNLF, which has fought for a Muslim state in the Southern Philippines since the late 1960s.

That changed in 1991, when Al Qaeda first moved into the region. There were several reasons to come to Southeast Asia: The movement needed space for training; there were numerous indigenous Islamic charities it could infiltrate; most countries tend to have weak central governments; and their borders are generally porous.

"What Al Qaeda has done very effectively is to come in and find common cause with these groups, and then co-opt, or at least insinuate themselves into, them," Abuza said. He outlined a model of the nexus between terrorist groups in the region and Al Qaeda that he dubbed "all channel." Rather than a hierarchy with Al Qaeda at the top, it resembled a multifaceted star with all groups connected to each other and to Al Qaeda at the center. "Although it sounds glib, Al Qaeda is like the Rolodex of terrorism," for its ability to put these homegrown groups in contact with each other and teach them how to operate across borders and in cooperation, Abuza said.

Abuza attributed the rise of intolerant Islam in a region rightly known for having a more relaxed version of the religion to several factors: the influence of the Iranian revolution on Islamic fundamentalists worldwide; the lack of a strong democratic tradition in most countries; the large number of students in madrassahs (Islamic religious schools) because of poor or nonexistent public education; and rising economic disparity and growing poverty, particularly in the wake of the 1997 financial crisis that devastated the region. "There was a real failure of secularism. Indonesia has lousy public schools, but if you send your kids to a madrassah they will at least get some education," he noted. Many of these schools were funded with Saudi money, which came with strings attached: Wahhabism, an extreme form of Islam, had to be taught.

Then there was the "Afghan effect." Only a small number, perhaps 1,000, Islamic militants from Southeast Asia went to fight as mujahedin against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1990s. The leaders of every militant Islamic group in the region were among them, and got to know each other there; Al Qaeda took those personal connections to the operational level. Abuza spelled out Al Qaeda's infiltration into the region: In 1991, Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law set up shop in the Philippines to connect with the Muslim insurgencies in Mindanao. And in 1995 Al Qaeda moved into Malaysia, where Libyan exile Abu Bakar Bashir had arrived 10 years earlier and set up Jema'ah Islamiah to fight for a hard-line Islamic state in Indonesia.

Abuza then connected the dots. Jema'ah Islamiah, moving back into Indonesia in 1998 after the fall of dictator Suharto, became a recruiter and way station for militants on their way to Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and funneled money to militants in Malaysia and the Philippines via front companies. In Malaysia, Al Qaeda-linked front companies like Green Labs Medicine produced ammonium nitrate for use in bombings and supplied arms from insurgent groups in Southern Thailand to operatives elsewhere. There was the now infamous meeting of Al Qaeda "lieutenants" in Kuala Lumpur in January 2000 at which three of the Sept. 11 hijackers were present. Militant Muslim groups in the Philippines were conducting joint training with Jema'ah Islamiah.

The "Big Bang" was going to take place in Singapore: an audacious plot to blow up the Fort Knox-like U.S. Embassy that was foiled by the arrests of 31 militants by Singapore and Malaysia authorities last December. (Abuza noted the Singaporeans are still frantically trying to account for 4 tons of ammonium nitrate.) The Bali bombing last month may have been a fallback plan after Singapore, intended to destabilize the secular Indonesian government and ruin the tourism industry, a key economic force throughout the region.